The Little Cannon Accident on The Princeton

The 10th President, John Tyler, had only achieved the highest office in the land thanks to the stubbornness of William Henry Harrison. Harrison has the notoriety of the shortest tenure as president, 31 days, as Harrison - a War of 1812 veteran who campaigned on a rough-and-tumble "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" platform and refused to wear a coat or a hat (gotta keep that rough-and-tumble energy up) at his inauguration despite the cold and the rain of March in Washington still delivered the longest inaugural address in the country's history (almost 8,500 words long). While many historians don't believe Harrison died a month later because he couldn't remember motherly advice to put on a coat and a hat, 100% of historians do agree that William Henry Harrison, did, in fact, die.

This brings us to his Vice President, John Tyler. No president had ever died in office before Harrison's one-month reign. While people had likely thought about a line of succession, it wasn't until after John F. Kennedy was assassinated that the 25th Amendment was ratified, officially promoting the Vice President to President in the event that the President is unable to perform their duties, and that is all we will say about that at present. Even Harrison's cabinet members called him "acting president." Opponents called Tyler "His Accidency," which, even by today's standards, is just a devastating burn. Henry Clay, leader of the Whigs, kicked Tyler out of the party. A whole bunch of Harrison's cabinet members resigned whenever Tyler tried to assert his authority as a president by vetoing bills. Congress opposed Tyler when he tried to nominate people to his own cabinet. This is, of course, insane. The Whigs tried to impeach him three times in his less-than-four-year-long presidency. Mid-19th century American politics were crazy because they were literally just making it up as they went along. Anyhow, Tyler consolidated his power and set out to fashion his own presidency that he never could have imagined a month earlier. 

On September 5, 1843 the Princeton was launched for the first time, a technological achievement in ship-building. The Princeton was known as a "corvette," the smallest class of warship, designed by Swedish inventor John Ericsson who would later go on to design and build the USS Monitor, the first steam-powered iron-hulled ship commissioned by the US Navy that would end up trading cannonballs off the CSS Merrimac at the Battle of Hampton Roads in the Civil War. 

Ericsson was a genius. Over his lifetime, not only did he design a working iron-hulled ship that changed the US Navy forever, but he invented an iron steamboat, a hot air engine, a solar engine, and a new kind of torpedo boat, among other things. He had designed a new ship that used twin screw-propellers that moved in opposite directions but the British Admiralty didn't like it. However, Ericsson's design had caught the eye of someone who could help his design see the light of day.

The Princeton was named so because it was the hometown of the Stockton family, a member of which was Captain Robert Field Stockton, the son of U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative Richard Stockton, the grandson of New Jersey Attorney General and signer of the Declaration of Independence (and not all confusingly-similarly-named) Richard Stockton. Captain Stockton spent his military career in the Navy, fighting in the War of 1812 at 17 years old. Stockton was an, ahem, skilled politician. He consecutively supported John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson - about as far apart on the political spectrum as you can possibly get. President Tyler asked him to be the Secretary of the Navy after the previous one resigned. He declined, but said he would help out. This gave him political influence. 

Using that influence, Robert Stockton invited Ericsson to come to the United States, and oversaw construction of the Princeton. The ship was commissioned on September 9, 1843 with Captain Stockton taking the helm. The Princeton was notable because it was the first American ship to employ screw propellers, powered by an engine below deck to protect it from gunfire. 

Over the next few months, the Princeton raced - and easily beat - the SS Great Western, then the fastest steam ship in the world, until everyone involved was satisfied that the ship was ready to go. In early 1844, the Princeton sailed for Hogg & Delamater's in New York to get two big guns (wrought-iron 225-pounders) in addition to the twelve 42-pound cannonades already installed: Peacemaker (which Stockton helped design) which weighed 27,000 pounds and was built in England, and the Ericsson-designed Oregon. Oregon was tested over 150 times. Stockton was the one who designed Peacemaker based on Ericsson's design, but didn't fully understand Ericsson's blueprints, unfortunately skipping some details that Ericsson had placed to stabilize and reinforce the massive cannon, and Stockton added another almost 13,000 pounds of weight to the gun. Stockton and Ericsson argued about the guns. Stockton was ready to take them out for a spin, Ericsson said Peacemaker hadn't undergone enough testing yet. 

Once the guns were fitted, the Princeton made its way to Washington, D.C., where she gained the interest of the town as well as government officials. By this time Stockton was actively seeking credit for the ship's design and increased tensions between him and Ericsson were putting an end to their partnership.

The Princeton arrived in Washington on February 13 and proceeded to make passenger runs down the Potomac River, just to show off, over the next week. Congress adjourned on February 20 so that congressmen could take a tour of the ship. 

On February 27 - Stockton fired Peacemaker (the big boy cannon that he had designed) and it had overheated. More vigorous testing of the gun should have taken place, apparently it had only been fired five times before receiving its official go-ahead. But the next day was a big day for Captain Stockton and the Princeton. That night Stockton wrote to his wife:

"Tomorrow - Tomorrow - Oh that tomorrow were past and I could say All is well."

It wouldn't be. 

On February 28, President John Tyler boarded the Princeton at Alexandria, Virginia, with a number of prominent politicians. Among them were former first lady Dolley Madison, Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, Captain Beverly Kennon - Chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs -  Representatives Virgil Maxey of Maryland and David Gardiner of New York, as well as Armistead, one of President Tyler's slaves.

One dignitary who declined an invitation to view the Princeton was former president and current Representative John Quincy Adams. He wasn't a fan of Tyler's expansionism and wrote derisively of the Princeton tour that the whole endeavor's purpose before Congress was "to fire their souls with patriotic ardor for a naval war."

As the Princeton sailed down the Potomac River, her cannons - 42 pounders - fired 26 times, one for each state in the Union at that point. When she passed Mount Vernon, the band played "Hail to the Chief." Upon the return to Washington, the various and assorted dignitaries were in the dining area giving toasts when Captain Stockton was informed that Peacemaker and Oregon were ready for a third firing demonstration. Initially he declined the request, but acquiesced in the presence of so much political power. Secretary of the Navy Gilmer was asked to make a toast before heading to the deck, which he pronounced "Fair trade and sailor's rights" to thunderous applause. It didn't take much, I guess. 

Everyone went to the deck of the Princeton, except for President Tyler, who stayed below to talk to somebody. He was halfway up the stairs to the deck, and there were about 100 people on the deck to view the firing of the guns when Stockton fired Peacemaker. Ericsson's warnings about Peacemaker, unfortunately, proved correct. The left side of the gun failed, shooting blazing hot metal across the deck and into the crowd of dignitaries. 

Congressman George Sykes, who was on the ship, wrote:

Upon turning my eyes towards [the gun] I was astonished to find that every man between me and the gun was lying prostrate on the deck - and about 30 or 40 men lying in heaps indiscriminately and promiscuously round the gun either killed, wounded, or knocked down and stunned by the concussion as the smoke gradually cleared away...

Secretary of the Navy Gilmer, Secretary of State Upshur, Captain Kennon, Rep. Maxey, Rep. Gardiner, and Tyler's slave Armistead were instantly killed. Captain Stockton, who had his leg resting on "Peacemaker" when it exploded, had his beard and hair burned off, and was in the hospital for weeks. 

The next day, President Tyler (uninjured as he had remained below deck for a few extremely fortunate minutes) wrote a letter to Congress absolving Stockton, or anyone, of blame, saying that the explosion "must be set down as one of the casualties which, to a greater or lesser degree, attend upon every service, and which are invariably incident to the temporal affairs of mankind."

Now Tyler had the unenviable task of replacing two cabinet members: Secretary of State Upshur, and Secretary of the Navy Gilmer - who had only been confirmed by the Senate two weeks earlier. Stockton was cleared by a court of inquiry, and Tyler sent him on board the Princeton to Galveston to deliver an offer to annex Texas. By this point Stockton was known as being somewhat rash, so Tyler had to tell him to calm down. While in Galveston, Stockton became aware of a growing desire in Texas to go to war against Mexico, and reported the news to President Tyler. Stockton was promoted to the rank of Commodore and was dispatched aboard the Princeton to California, where he eventually commanded the Pacific Fleet, and marched on Los Angeles. Mexican General Jose Antonio Castro abandoned all his artillery. Stockton sent a courier, a Christopher Houston (Kit) Carson, to inform Washington of his conquest of California.

Stockton resigned from the Navy in 1850 and ran for the Senate as a Democrat from New Jersey. It wasn't until 1913 that the 17th Amendment allowed for citizens to directly elect their senators, and so the elections fell to the State Legislatures, of whom New Jersey's State Legislature elected Stockton over the Whig incumbent William Dayton. Stockton resigned in 1853 to become president of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. He passed away in Princeton, New Jersey in 1866.

Rep. Gardiner's daughter, 24-year old Julia (to whom Tyler had already proposed, been declined, proposed again and was awaiting a formal response), was on board The Princeton and fainted when she learned of her father's death. President Tyler carried her off the ship back to Washington, and she went on to marry President Tyler in four months later, citing Tyler's actions on that day as the cement of her love for him. 

Julia Gardiner Tyler was the youngest First Lady in American history until 1886. Grover Cleveland, a long-time bachelor, invited the widow of his former law partner Oscar Folsom to the White House. Rumors flew that he was going to propose to the widow, he instead proposed to her 21-year old daughter, who accepted. Frances Folsom married 49-year old Grover Cleveland in the Blue Room of the White House in the only wedding to take place within the White House. 

UPDATE: One thing that I was remiss to...miss was the fact that John Tyler - who passed away in 1862 - has two still-living grandchildren (as of August 30, 2020). John and Julia's 4th child was Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853. Lyon G. Tyler was the president of the College of William and Mary from 1888 until 1919. After his first wife passed away in 1921, Tyler (67 years old) married Sue Ruffin (32 years old). They had three children together: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. was born in 1924, Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928, and a third child died in infancy. Lyon, Jr. and Harrison are still alive - the grandsons of the 10th President of the United States, who has been dead for 148 years. 

The 24-Year Old From Tennessee Who Changed The Country

Harry Thomas Burn was 22 years old when he was first elected to the Tennessee State Legislature. Harry was the oldest of four born to James & Febb Burn in Mouse Creek - now Niota - Tennessee, between Chattanooga and Knoxville. 

James Burn was the Niota depot stationmaster and opened some businesses around town. His mother, known by pretty much everybody as "Miss Febb," was a teacher after graduating from what is now Tennessee Wesleyan University. 

Women actually had the right to vote in the pre-Revolutionary Colonies. It was in early 1776 that Abigail Adams wrote her husband, and future 2nd President of the United States, John:

I long to hear that you have declared an independency - and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for your to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If [particular] care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

But by the time the Constitution itself was ratified in 1789, the delegates kicked it to the curb (also see: abolishing Slavery). Every state explicitly denied women the right to vote - except for New Jersey, who allowed female landowners to vote until 1807, when even they backed out and limited voting privileges to white dudes.

1848 saw the Seneca Falls Convention, in which 300 women and men not only advocated for women's suffrage (Suffrage: sounds Bad, is actually Good) but for equality for women in every aspect of societal and political life. The 1830s and 1840s were big decades for the women's suffrage movement. William Lloyd Garrison was the editor of The Liberator - a prominent and influential abolitionist newspaper from 1831 to the end of the Civil War - and became friends with Lucretia Mott, an early feminist and abolitionist who was influential on Garrison, who also became committed to women's rights. There was a definite crossover between the abolitionist and women's suffrage. 

Suffragettes like sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké spoke out:

Are we aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizenship because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people?

Women's suffrage kinda sorta took a backseat to the Civil War. But when that [waves hands above head] Whole Thing ended, it was on. As the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were being debated, suffragettes pushed to have women included in the right to vote.  In 1866 Pennsylvania Senator Edgar Cowan introduced an amendment to provide for women's suffrage, and was promptly defeated 37-9.  There were two major women's suffrage camps:

The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, wanted to get to vote by pressuring Congress to add an amendment to the Constitution. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, wanted to slow-play it by pressuring state legislatures on a state-by-state basis. 

The NWSA argued that the 14th Amendment applied to giving women the right to vote - which was passed in 1868 and said that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That year, 1868, Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy introduced another bill that would provide universal suffrage. It was tabled...indefinitely.

Also, the NWSA argued the 15th Amendment (1869) should also guarantee suffrage for women, which said:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

In the year that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, Myra Bradwell - a woman of good character - passed the Illinois State Bar exam, giving her "sufficient training to be admitted to the practice of law." That said, the Illinois Supreme Court took a Hard Pass on Those Shenanigans, saying that the "strife" of being a lawyer would destroy her femininity. 

How could they legally justify such a thing? There's a common law doctrine of "coverture" - a holdover from feudal Norman law that essentially said that, prior to marriage, a woman could do normal things, like execute a will, sign a contract, sue or be sued, etc. But once she got married those rights were suspended under a "marital unity" clause in which the husband/wife's were consolidated under one entity: the husband's. Once married, women basically didn't have legal rights anymore. Using an offshoot of the Coverture clause - aka Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Illinois Supreme Court batted Myra Bradwell down. She appealed. This eventually became Bradwell v. Illinois, and the Supreme Court (with one exception) said the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to women who happen to have passed the Bar and want to be lawyers. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who had a history of a narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, went so far as to write of the importance of the "respective spheres of man and woman," with the woman's role of wife/mother naturally following the "law of the Creator."

Still, progress towards women's suffrage continued to be made. Wyoming gave women the right to vote in 1869. 

Another challenge came in 1875, and still the Supreme Court used a narrow interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause, this time in the case of Virginia Minor. Minor was a prominent Missouri suffrage leader who tried to register to vote in 1872 and was denied by registrar Reese Happersett, on the grounds that she was a woman. Her husband, Francis, was a lawyer and supported her test case. Minor sued Happersett using the 14th Amendment as a defense, and it went to the Missouri Supreme Court, who ruled that the "almost universal practice of the States" granted voting rights to men, only, saying that the 14th Amendment explicitly gave voting rights to the formerly enslaved, and should not be used as a precedent to change other laws. 

Minor v. Happersett went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1874. The Minors said women's suffrage was implied by the intent of the Founding Fathers. The Supreme Court said that the only thing in question was whether the Constitution specifically gave women the right to vote and that, no, it didn't. The State of Missouri was represented by a three-sentence written objection that was whole-heartedly endorsed by the Supreme Court. But the tide was starting to turn.

Thirty years after the Seneca Falls Convention, five years after Bradwell v. Illinois, four years after Minor v. Happersett, a Constitutional Amendment was proposed in 1878 to give women the right to vote.  California Senator Aaron A. Sargent - whose wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was a friend of Susan B. Anthony - introduced the bill to the Senate. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others testified before the Senate in support of the bill. Five months later a petition with 30,000 signatures was brought before Congress. The bill failed, 34-16.

In 1888 the House of Representatives voted for limited suffrage for spinsters or widows who owned property. It failed. But progress was being made. Colorado granted partial women's suffrage in 1893, Idaho in 1896. Washington state granted women the right to vote in 1910, California followed in 1911. 

Anti-Suffragists were making their case. In 1897 prominent Anti-Suffragist Helen Kendrick Johnson published Woman and the Republic, in which she said:

Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage party has been fortunate in its attempt to invoke the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to blend it with the claim of woman to share in the public duty of voting...As I read political history, the facts go to show that the fundamental principles of our Government are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage by women than are those of monarchies. To me it seems that both despotism and anarchy are more friendly to woman's political aspirations than is any form of constitutional government, and that manhood suffrage, and not womanhood suffrage, is the final result of the evolution of democracy.

As we've seen in recent years, there's a lot of notoriety to be had when you look like the people you are trying to oppress.

On April 14, 1910 suffragettes met with President William Howard Taft to lobby for women's suffrage. Taft, who was over 350 pounds, got so mad he exclaimed that if women got the right to vote, "power might be exercised by the least desirable person." He cheered himself up by going to the Washington Senators/Philadelphia Athletics game on Opening Day. Taft threw out the first pitch of the game, and a tradition of president throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day was born. 

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was founded in 1911, with membership originally consisting of people from two camps: wealthy Northeastern families who just didn't want to upset the status quo, and wealthy Southerners who were afraid that equal rights for women would naturally lead to equal rights for minorities. It's said that NAOWS membership numbered 350,000. Anya Jabour, a history professor at the University of Montana, explained that: "Many of the women in the anti-suffrage movement felt that the political system was a corrupt space, and if women joined it, they would inevitably become just as corrupt as the men." And, as with pretty much everything else in American society, it sort of came down to race. Broadsides were distributed that said women's suffrage would eventually lead to "Negro domination of our government."

The movement marched forward. In 1912 Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas all passed a suffrage bill. Note how all of these are western states, which tended to be more progressive than their eastern counterparts. A year later, in 1913, a petition was delivered to the Senate with over 75,000 signatures and followed with a parade in what was called "The Siege of the Senate." According to the New York Evening Journal:

Women were jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many heard "indecent epithets" and "barnyard conversation." Instead of protecting the parade, the police "seemed to enjoy all the ribald jokes and laughter, and part participated (sic) in them." One policeman remarked that the women should stay home where they belonged. The men in the procession heard shouts of "Henpecko" and "Where are your skirts?" As one witness explained, "There was a sort of spirit of levity connected with the crowd. They did not regard the affair very seriously."

The New York Times ran an editorial that year which stated:

The benefits of woman suffrage are almost wholly imaginary. Its penalties will be real and hard to bear.

On March 19, 1914 the Senate - eight months after the Siege - which required a 2/3 super-majority to support it - failed to pass giving women the right to vote by 11 votes, 35-34. World War 1 happened. As it does. By 1918, after the House of Representatives had passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, President Woodrow Wilson, now a converted suffragette (because he needed it for the war effort), spoke in favor of giving women the right to vote. This time it failed in the Senate by two votes. 

1918 featured a mid-term election in the middle of a - wait for it - GLOBAL PANDEMIC. President Wilson was fighting for his 14 Points and League of Nations, but also trying to garner support for universal suffrage. After getting blasted by Helen H. Gardener and Carrie Chapman Catt, Woodrow Wilson advocated for universal suffrage in his 1919 State of the Union. The Senate fell one vote short on February 10, 1919 - mainly opposed by Southern congressmen. Less than four months later, the Senate - 41 years after Aaron Sargent formally proposed women's suffrage, and 71 years after the Seneca Falls Convention - suffragettes had the votes. Needing a 2/3 super-majority, the Senate passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment 56-25. Two votes made the difference.

The stage was set. See, The Rules say that 75% of the states have to approve an Amendment before it actually becomes A Thing. In 1920 there were 48 states, so you need 36 state legislatures to approve it before it can be an Amendment. But November 1920 was a full-on election. By June 1920 - with a presidential and congressional election coming five months later - anti-suffragists were saying that anything that happened that Summer would be undone with the election. At this point, 35 states had approved women's suffrage, eight had voted against it. There were five states yet to hold a vote, but four of those states refused to call a special session to consider giving women the right to vote. One more state voting for the Amendment would seal it. Tennessee agreed to hold a special session. The Tennessee State Senate passed the measure easily, the fight stalled in the Tennessee State House of Representatives. This brings us back to the youngest state legislator in Tennessee, 24-year old Harry Burn. 

The fight descended on Nashville, setting up camp in The Hermitage Hotel, half a mile from the Tennessee State Capitol building. The vote was set for August 1920. Tennessee state legislators were paired off - those opposed to women's suffrage, wearing a red rose on the lapel of their suit, and those in favor of giving women the right to vote, wearing a yellow rose. Allegations of corruption ran deep as anti-suffrage forces tried to bribe or coerce State Representatives. Industrialists didn't want women to have the right to vote, as women might end up voting for tougher labor laws. The Alcohol lobby wasn't interested in women having the right to vote because of Prohibition, so they set up the Jack Daniel's Suite at The Hermitage Hotel, ready to lube up the legislators.

Friday, August 18, 1920 saw impassioned speeches from both sides in the Tennessee State Legislature. House Speaker Seth L. Walker hollered:

The hour has come. The battle has been fought and won, and I move...that the motion to concur in the Senate action goes where it belongs - to the table.

Basically, Walker was asking for the vote to be tabled until after the November elections. Harry Burn wore a red rose on his lapel, signifying his intention to vote for the right for women not to vote. Burn was facing re-election in a few months, and McMinn County was pretty divided. Burn voted twice to table the vote until the next legislature, hoping that he could stay in the good graces of party leadership and his constituents, get re-elected, and then do it all again. But the vote was 48-48, which led to Speaker Walker calling for an immediate re-vote, calling on the legislators to consider the issue of women's suffrage "on its merits." It would be decided in the special session, not by kicking the can down the road until after November.

Rep. Burn had two items on or near his lapel: the red rose pin, and a letter from his mother, "Miss Febb." The seven-page letter updated Harry on the goings-on around town and the farm, but also:

Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I notice some the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet....Be a good boy and help Mrs. [Carrie Chapman] Catt put the 'rat' in ratification.

Armed with the letter from his mother, when it was time for the roll call, Burn's name appeared fairly early in the proceedings. He gave a soft-spoken "Aye," voting for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. It took a little while for everyone who had gathered to watch the vote to realize what had just happened. When all legislators had cast their ballot, the result was 49-47 in favor. 24-year old Harry Burn's vote was the deciding one. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and women had the right to vote. Yellow roses rained down on the floor of the House from Suffragists in the gallery.

Immediately Speaker Walker called for a motion to reconsider. It failed. Burn inserted a statement into the Journal of the Tennessee State House of Representatives, saying:

I knew that a mother's advice is always safest for a boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification. I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom comes to a mortal man to free 17 million women from political slavery was mine.

The Knoxville Sentinel published a limerick:

There is a young man from Niota

Who for precedent cares no iota

He sprung a surprise

When he flopped to the 'Ayes,'

And enraptured the feminine voter!

But the fight wasn't over just yet. 37 Anti-Suffragist Tennessee legislators quickly boarded a train bound for Decatur, Alabama in an effort to prevent a quorum for any further action. That failed, too. Two Anti-Suffragists swore in an affidavit that Burn had been bribed, leading to a grand jury investigation into his actions. He was cleared. 

Miss Febb registered to vote on October 9, 1920 and was eligible to vote in the 1920 mid-term elections. Her voter registration card still had masculine pronouns because they didn't have time to reprint new cards. Now faced with a grueling re-election campaign in McMinn County as That Guy What Let Women Vote, his campaign attracted nationwide attention, and not necessarily positive:

People from all over the country went into my county. They held indignation meetings, passed resolutions...When I went home for a weekend I would generally keep a bodyguard around so that no one would attack me.

Burn narrowly won re-election to another two-year term. 

In 1923, Burn was admitted to practice law in Tennessee and did so for the rest of his life, also serving in the State Senate from 1948 to 1952, and becoming the president of a bank. He died at his home in Niota in 1977. Before his death, but years after that fateful vote, Burn recalled:

I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.

And people really say that one vote doesn't matter.

Less than a month after the official ratification of the 19th Amendment, Connecticut became the 37th state legislature to ratify it. Vermont followed in February 1921. Maryland didn't ratify the Amendment until 1941. Virginia? 1952. Alabama: 1953. Florida was the 43rd state to do so...in 1969. South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina all followed suit by the end of 1971. Mississippi had the distinction of being the last of the original 48 states to officially give women the right to vote...in 1984. 

The 1947 Texas City Disaster

What with the news of the terrible explosion in Beirut this morning, I did some reading and came across April 16-17, 1947 in Texas City, Texas. Texas City is 45 miles southwest of Houston, just across Galveston Bay from Galveston Island. The town was founded in the 1830s when veterans were given some land on the coast as payment for their services in the Texas Revolution, and they named it Shoal Point. About sixty years later, three duck-hunting brothers (Benjamin, Henry, and Jacob Myers) from Duluth, Minnesota visited, saw the potential for a major port, and put together enough investments from back home to buy 10,000 acres of land along Galveston Bay, and extremely creatively renamed the entire thing "Texas City" in 1891. The Myers Brothers ultimately went back to Minnesota and developed real estate, but not before their venture dredged an eight-foot Gulf channel from the eastern end of Galveston Island that eventually became a 40' channel to handle bigger ships. They also built a 4.1-mile railroad line that operated on the Galvestion, Harrisbug, & San Antonio Railroad (the second rail company to operate west of the Mississippi River) as well as the Galveston, Houston, & Henderson Railroad. Eventually it would extend to the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railway systems.

The company went bankrupt in 1897 and was split into two companies - one to manage the railroad, the other to buy town lots and provide electricity, water, and gas. When the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 incapacitated the island, the Texas City port remained open, allowing shipping to continue on to Houston. When the Spindletop Oilfield was discovered in 1901, the Texas City Refinery Company came along a few years later, and Texas City grew rapidly. Prior to World War 1 in 1913, tensions within Mexico meant the government wanted to keep an eye on American interests. Two Texas City founders successfully convinced the War Department to station 10,000 troops there from the Second Division of the US Army. While a 1915 hurricane destroyed the camp, the troops did pave roads and streets, dug sewer and drainage lines, and strung telegraph and electric lines, greatly improving the infrastructure of Texas City. The camp was removed in 1921 after army officials continually complained about such a large military outpost in an area under the threat of hurricanes, heat, and mosquitoes. The Great Depression closed down a major sugar refinery, but the growth of the oil industry helped reduce the effects, and Texas City grew steadily over the years, with a 1940 census population of over 5,000 people. World War II also helped the Texas City port become one of the largest ports in Texas, with refineries and chemical plants working around the clock to supply the war effort. Also, at the time there were only two places in the world that offered tin smelting: England and Holland. But the Nazis threatened those industries, so the Defense Plant Corporation - led by Roosevelt official Jesse H. Jones (namesake of Houston's Jones Hall) - built the only tin smelter in the western hemisphere, in Texas City.

It started about 8am on April 16, 1947 aboard the French SS Grandcamp, which was about to complete loading a big ol' shipment of ammonium nitrate. Valuable during the war, ammonium nitrate could be recycled to produce fertilizer. It's also super-flammable, and what Timothy McVeigh would use just two tons of to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City almost fifty years later. 2,300 tons of the fertilizer had already been loaded onto the Grandcamp when some of the crew noticed smoke. 

They didn't want to ruin the shipment of ammonium nitrate, so the crew instead tried to just snuff out the flames instead of putting it out with water. There was also ammunition in one of the cargo holds. In hindsight, both of these would be seen as a mistake. At 9:12am the ship exploded. A seismograph in Denver picked up the explosion, which was felt as far away as Louisiana, some 250 miles away. Windows in Houston - 45 miles away - were shattered. The entire dock area in Texas City was immediately destroyed, as was the nearby Monsanto Chemical Company. A barge - the Longhorn II - was anchored in port near the Grandcamp, was lifted out of the water and thrown 100' on shore. The Grandcamp's anchor was found 1.62 miles away.

Texas City resident Nattie Morrow was at her house with her two children and her sister-in-law. Mrs. Morrow:

Suddenly a thundering boom sounded, and seconds later the door ripped off its facing, skidded across the kitchen floor, and slammed down onto the table where I sat with the baby. The house toppled to one side and sat off its piers at a crazy angle. Broken glass filled the air, and we didn't know what was happening.

Also catching fire were the refineries in the area, which then exploded, as well. It set off a chain reaction of explosions of grain silos, chemical storage tanks, etc. Debris sparked fires and other explosions throughout Texas City. Iron, ship fragments, remnants of the cargo, and fragments from secondary explosions flew 2000-3000' in the air and rained down on Texas City itself. The initial explosion created a 15' tall tidal wave. Five hundred residences were flattened, over a thousand residences and businesses were damaged in the initial explosion. Twenty-eight Texas City firemen were killed and all of their fire-fighting equipment was destroyed. Complicating matters, Texas City phones weren't working because telephone operators across the country had gone on strike nine days earlier. Operators in Texas City quickly went back to work after the explosion, but it caused a delay in coordinating rescue and relief efforts. 

Also docked for repairs in Texas City was the SS High Flyer, which was also carrying ammonium nitrate. Spared by the initial explosion, the High Flyer was towed 100 feet to get it out of the way. 16 hours later - after 1am on April 17 - the High Flyer exploded with 1000 tons of ammonium nitrate and 2000 tons of sulfur on board. The force of the explosion also destroyed the SS Wilson B. Keene, which was also carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur. But because there was no firefighting equipment working in Texas City, and all but one of the city's firemen had died in the first explosion, the city was left defenseless from the second explosion. Even though power and water had been cut off, the Red Cross and nearby cities sent almost 4,000 volunteers and rescue assistance to help. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, and National Guard all sent soldiers, as well as doctors, nurses, and ambulances. The Red Cross and the Boy and Girl Scouts of America sent volunteers.

Texas City turned the high school gym into a morgue. Casualties are hard to pin down for a few reasons: some people were simply vaporized, others were working in the plants illegally, still other sailors were foreigners. The official death toll was 581, though it's likely higher. 

The explosion led to refineries - and the government - rethinking disaster preparedness. Texas City refineries coordinated the Industrial Mutual Aid System, establishing protocols in the event of a disaster, which influenced industrial refineries across Texas. 

The explosion today in Beirut reportedly detonated 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate - 400 tons, or 800,000 pounds more than the Texas City explosion.